AKG wrote:

Sorry if this sounds too much like teenage angst, but I'm only 18:
How do you guys cope with loneliness as classical theist?  In my school I do have friends but I feel like I can't really connect with them or other people in my grade that well as on the week-ends they like to go to parties and smoke pot, drink, hook up with people for sex et cetera and I don't go with them as having been researching the ethics of people like Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, and some Stoics(along with being Muslim), I find all this to be a waste of time which merely is hazardous to the soul. Since it is doing so which allows most people in my grade to make connections and know each other better, I feel pretty lonely sometimes which really gets to me sometimes and makes me think of myself as a big loser(and some characterize me as anti-social). Reading Plato helps alleviate this feeling sometimes, but otherwise its pretty bothersome. Sorry again if this is too wangsty. 

That's a great question that I don't really have an answer to either, since I'm more or less in the same boat; I've just entered my twenties this year, and I had the same problems being a Christian in high school, even in a fairly religious state likeTexas.

College has alleviated it somewhat, because a lot of those feelings are artificially created by spending so much dead time just sitting around in the old 8-hour public school system, but I still have few close friends, and spend more time than I would like by myself.

If you have any siblings, you might try striking a close relationship to them, since unlike friends, family is eternal; I know this would probably be harder for most people than for me though, since me and my sister have always been very close and never have really fought, unlike a lot of siblings especially nowadays.

Unfortunately, I don't think this problem with finding good friendships is an exclusively Classical Theist or INTP problem; rather, I think our society today really abhors the concept of friendship, and has replaced it with business partnership; people, especially Americans, have a nasty habit of thinking about why they need friends in terms of their utility, and not for the mutual edification of their souls. Hence, many "popular" kids might in fact be more lonely than you are, since they do not really have any true friends, but merely have close business associates, at best.

You might try finding friends in some sort of church/whatever-is the-equivalent-of-that-for-Muslims group, but many of the caveats mentioned before apply here too; far too many people think of religion in precisely the same utilitarian terms that they do for friendships, and this leads to a sugarcoated overly emotional ethos that permeates these groups.

Regardless, when evaluating if you are properly social enough, don't think about it primarily in terms of popularity, but rather in terms of how many friends you have that you think are worth having for the rest of your life, and truely love you as a person.

But then again, this is the advice of a fairly shy INTP personality type who has had little more success than you have had in this domain, so take it all with a grain of salt.

I don't.

I concur about this being an important topic. I don't know if I can present much of help, as the unkind (or as they like to style themselves 'honest') could accuse me of having been in a similar position since the end of my 'teens.
 
Also, I'm not a natural law theorist so any objection I could give to drink, drugs and whoring wouldn't be for NL reasons. If you have deep religious or philosophical objections to these activities then pay no heed to others, yet by the same token be sure you are clear in your own mind what is wrong with them. Conversely it's important to ask, even if one has no objection to them, just why they appear so desirable (speaking from my own ignoble experience there are few things more existentially wearisome than chasing after women not even out of desire but just for the sake of it).
 
Do you have any artistic interests (doesn't have to creative on your part: I've been heavily involved with literature and music for years without having much ability with either)? That's a good way of gradually becoming part of a community, as such persons are generally keen to welcome those with an informed interest especially if they’re still relatively young. Unfortunately though most people in these circles tend to be quite politically motivated, so one still comes up against this ‘dogmatic  walls’ about philosophical issues (depending on the individuals one’s with this might become intolerable – anyone who remembers Santi from Ed’s blog has a good example why).  
 

AKG wrote:

I find all this to be a waste of time which merely is hazardous to the soul.

What do you consider a worthwhile use of time? I don't just mean worthwhile in general but worthwhile within the smaller subset of your own abilities and predilections. I suppose this is the deep issue about individual meaning and existential telos. One of the hardest things, for me at least, is to have the feeling that one has these individual potentialities, but through the circumstances of one's setting or time will never have the chance to actualise them.[OT: not to sound grim but it sometimes makes me question if there’s anything wrong with suicide in such situations – that act is wrong because one leaves the world without realising oneself as much as one can here, yet if because of the setting/others actions one cannot realize anything then wherein lies the personal failure?]

AKG wrote:

Since it is doing so which allows most people in my grade to make connections and know each other better, I feel pretty lonely sometimes which really gets to me sometimes and makes me think of myself as a big loser(and some characterize me as anti-social).

Why do you feel it makes you a loser? (Not saying the loneliness doesn't really point to some kind of absence but it's better to look at that after separating the good reasons for change from the bad).

AKG wrote:

Reading Plato helps alleviate this feeling sometimes, but otherwise its pretty bothersome. Sorry again if this is too wangsty. 

And have no fear. I guarantee that at the grand old age of almost 27 I'm still more wangsty.

Last edited by DanielCC (4/22/2016 5:50 pm)

@AKG​I agree with on some of the things that Timotheos said. Family and close friends are usually the best ways to deal with loneliness because they are the ones who will love and care for you the most.

@Alexander,
I don't think socializing or going to parties is a waste of time, I just take this view with regards to drinking, smoking weed, casual sex and other stuff. The thing is at most parties at my school this most of what people do, and last time I went to a party I was really bored and felt left out because I wouldn't do any of that stuff.. My friends want me to go the end of year party and get me to do all of this stuff(to the point they told me they'd be willing to lock me in a room full of smoked weed) even though I've told them a hundred times I won't do it.